


S . P . L . I . T

by R00w



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Kinda, M/M, Weird Biology, yeah - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:54:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27022330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/R00w/pseuds/R00w
Summary: Zim has been feeling... off. But he IS the Amazing ZIM. He will figure it out. He will fix it. Do not worry about it.Dib notices, like always. He notices when something is wrong with Zim. And ow, why, WHY WAS ZIM HUGGING HIM NOW?!
Relationships: Dib/Zim (Invader Zim), ZaDr - Relationship, mentions of, tagr - Relationship
Comments: 4
Kudos: 60





	S . P . L . I . T

It was a particularly hot night for fall. 

Dib was sitting on his computer, looking through the cameras he had in Zim's base. He had a fan on the highest setting aiming directly at him. He could feel the drops of sweat fall from his forehead into his shirt, the humidity only worsening the high temperature of his body. He had ditched his pants and his black trench coat a while ago and was currently in his blue ghost shirt and black boxers. He hated nights like this when he felt damp and gross. He couldn’t wait for the winter to come so he could snuggle on his Mothman slippers, his soft and fluffy UFO blanket over his shoulders and a cocoa mug with little marshmallows between his hands as he watched Zim through his cameras surely will be way better. It was nice to have a change of pace once in a while, after all.

He focused again on the live video feed on his laptop screen where GIR was watching a disturbingly bloody movie about a girl that was in love with some kind of rat-man, Dib had been watching along until they started singing and he lost interest. Although the concept of a rat turning into a man was interesting. How would they learn to speak? He shook his head, clearing the thoughts of animal-human hybrids from his head. He should concentrate, who knows how long will his cameras work for before they were fried by the alien technology or got destroyed by Zim on his weekly sweeps to find his bugs and spy equipment, he had to make the most of them.

He pressed enter on his keyboard, changing the camera from the one of the living room to one of the labs below the ground and hummed in interest, adjusting his posture on the wheeled chair, righting his lenses as he bent over, getting closer to the screen. There he was. The green alien menace that wanted to take over his planet.

Zim was typing frantically on a screen, three huge cables were connected to his PAK, one on each of the pink orbs it had, covering them almost entirely. He seemed… desperate. He said something, it had been barely a whisper so the human could not make sense of it. Dib could see the different expressions on his face, unlike when he had the disguise on, the big magenta eyes reflected the strange letters lit up with pink hues. He started studying, categorizing. He seemed odd, out of place. YES, that was it, Zim had never seemed so out of place in his own base.

“COMPUTER, WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS SCANS?!” he shouted in Irken. Absentmindedly he picked up a pair of hearing aids he had modified to translate Irken to English that he had stolen from Tak a couple of weeks back while she and Gaz were playing video games downstairs. Zim was gripping the alien tablet on his hands with so much force that Dib had to admit Irken technology was cool as it didn’t even bend under that pressure. He knew first hand just how strong Zim was, he still had a horrible bruise on his left arm from last weekend's fistfight. Even if he was now taller than him, the Irken packed a mean punch and he had his robot legs, it didn’t even matter if Dib called him a cheater he still used them. To be honest, if Dib had them he would use them too.

“How should I know? It's not my PAK” the house responded in Irken, clearly exasperated in what seemed to be a long discussion that had been going on for a long time now. That brought back his attention to his own computer.

“Scans? Zim is scanning his PAK?” Dib said to his empty room, a thoughtful expression on his face. Why would Zim do that? In all the long six years Zim had been on Earth, six years of Dib spying on him too, he had never seen Zim do this kind of examination of his life-supporting backpack.

“THEN WHY IS THIS TELLING ME I’M DEFECTIVE?!” Zim shouted, the screen on his hands getting thrown across the room, shattering into a million pieces. Well, so Irken metal wasn't indestructible then, good to know.

“I don’t know, ok?” the computer answered, bored and annoyed.

“RUN IT AGAIN!” Zim shouted, fists clenching hard at his sides. Through the shitty camera quality, Dib could tell he was trembling. He pushed himself off the console he had been consulting and stood up. “DO IT NOW!” he demanded, gloved claws slamming on the console.

“FINE sheeeeshhh” was the response. The cables connecting to the PAK began glowing, a soft purple and blue light traveling in small dots of light from the ceiling into the PAK. Zims eyes froze for a second going from deep magenta to a pale pink, his body going totally stiff, his antennae falling flat to his head's sides. Dib had the feeling that those cables were keeping straight, preventing him from falling face-first to the floor. So he was literally scanning himself? Just how much was Zims’…  _ Zimsness _ on his biological brain and how much was on his cyborgs' brain?

A couple of seconds later he, quite literally, sprung back to life. He jumped where he stood, looking frantically around, growling and baring his sharp teeth, antennae up and tense, the tips twitching. Dib analyzed the pose, it screamed of defensive and feral. It was weird to see Zim like this, even when they were fighting he never seemed so savage. The lights on the cables were dimming down and with a ding, another tablet appeared from a panel within the console.

Zim seemed to realize where he was and what he was doing when he saw it appear and snatched it, scrolling through the Irken at a really impressive pace. “No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, NO. NO!” he screamed, not believing what he was reading “ WHY?!” he shouted louder. “I can fix this, I just need to…” he turned around, the cables moving behind him but still attached to his back. 

Dib lost sight of him as the alien walked to the other end of the room. “Shit” he cursed, quickly hitting enter and changing cameras. He should have another one in the lab, from another angle, right? He hit enter. No, that was the voot. Enter. The storage room where Zim kept his deliveries. Enter. A dark room with what seemed like a big puff in the middle that he had never seen being used. Enter. Static, great, one camera down. Enter. GIR again, wait, what? That was it?! Enter. He was back at the lab, Zim was still out of the frame but he could hear movement, some kind of metal sound getting louder and louder. Dragging, Zim was dragging something metallic out of frame.

“Dammit” Dib cursed, hands messing his dark hair, eyes glued to the screen in the dark. What was he doing? What was happening? He had to know.

Zim then reappeared into view, yanking some kind of pod bigger than himself along and placing it next to the may console right in front of the camera for the human to observe. It was oval-shaped, with the Irken armada symbol that all the alien tech had, and a weird symbol Dib had never seen before. It looked like a bull if bulls had three eyes and what looked like fangs sticking out of its two mouths, also, it had two long horns that went out of the circle it was encased in. Scratched at the top of the bull-like thing were three identical symbols. 

Irken, they were irken letters. Dib could tell that much. He hurriedly scrambled the papers on his desk, searching for his notes on Irken translation he had gathered over the years. “AHA!” He said triumphantly, pulling the old and stained paper. He should really digitize all of his files. He wrote the symbol down on his paper, it was a tilted L like shape with a little line below it. He stared at it. He knew it. It was not a letter. It was a number! He scanned his reference sheet. It was seven. Three sevens? What did that mean?

“Stupid 777, not making this thing wireless like I TOLD HIM TO.” Zim complained, plugging the pod into a cord from behind the console “ COMPUTER! Connect the data transfer wire from my PAK to the chamber!”

“UUGGGHHHH” the A.I. complained, but one of the cables stuck to Zims PAK segmented itself, half of it staying and the other half moving to the pod next to the alien.

Dib was transfixed, watching whatever evil scheme began, or culminated, before his eyes. He had never had the luck to witness Zim during his inventing of testing phases. Usually, by now he would have been discovered. It was a testament to how shook Zim was by his whole PAK thing that his camera was still there. He bit his lip, what if it actually worked this time? What if he failed just because he stayed in his house, watching, instead of going over there and kicking the spacebugs ass? What was inside that pod? 

“It should be done now” Zim's voice attracted his attention again. He had been furiously typing again what seemed like a very complicated code. But then again, it could be a grocery list and still look menacing, Irken was crazy looking. NO. Dib. F. O. C. U. S. E. He lightly slapped his cheeks. He needed to keep his mind on the matter at hand. 

“Uhhhhh, is that safe? You are leaving like half of… well… you” the computer argued. 

“ZIM SAID IT WAS DONE!” the little being shouted at the ceiling, tiny fists menacingly shaking up. “NOW. Start the transfer,” he instructed. 

“ I don’t wanna”

“SILENCE! DO AS I TELL YOU TO!” 

“OOKAAAYYY” Then the computer's voice changed, sounding drone-like and stiff. “Initiating sequence #2634932. PAK Data transfer. Would you like to make a backup file before commencing the transfer?” 

“Sure sure, whatever, get on with it!” Zim dismissed, sitting on his high purple chair, reclining himself and closing his eyes. His PAK lit up under him, glowing from the familiar magenta circles to an angry glowing red, illuminating the surrounding area. 

“Starting transfer sequence in 3… 2… 1...!” 

Dib was on the edge of his seat. It looked like Zim was transferring his own mind into whatever was in that pod. He had to stop him. HE HAD TO STOP HIM!

He stood up so fast the chair fell behind him, a loud thud on his carpet. His breathing was heavy as he got dressed in record speed. As he was sliding on his trench coat he looked again at his laptop. On the big screen in front of Zim had appeared a progress bar. It marked what Dib assumed was a percentage of completeness. It was still low, barely even visible from his camera, but he had to hurry the fuck up if he wanted to do anything about it. He put on his black leather boots and ran to the door of his room, not even a second glance towards his monitor.

If he runs he will make it.

He had to, there was no one else.

**Author's Note:**

> Just, trust me on this one, ok???
> 
> I'll update on Wednesdays, also please mind the tags as I'll add more as we go along as to not spoil it.  
> There is a plot here somewhere. We'll get to it soon enough. In the meantime, plz enjoy.  
> Can anyone guess what the POD is for? (I think it's rather obvious).
> 
> Kudos and comments are the way into a writers heart <3


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